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Price History and the Bursa Silk Industry: A Study in Ottoman Industrial Decline, 1550–1650

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Murat Cizakca
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Abstract

The Ottoman Empire did not escape the “price revolution” of the “long” sixteenth century. As far as the Bursa silk industry was concerned, however, the rate of increase of relative prices was such as to result in a price “scissors.” This situation led to declining profits in the production of cloth, while profits in the production of the raw material were substantial. A transformation of Bursa's economy from cloth production to raw material production followed. It appears that this transformation conformed to a cyclical pattern in the following centuries, a pattern that was chiefly dictated by European economic might.

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Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 533 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1980

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References

1 Barkan, Ömer Lufti, “The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 6 (01 1975), 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 On the importance of Bursa as the center of silk industry and trade see the following studies by Inalcik, Halil: “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,” this Journal, 29 (03 1969), 97–140Google Scholar; “Harir,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1960)Google Scholar; “Bursa XV. Asir Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihine Dair Vesikalar” (Documents on the industrial and commercial history of Bursa during the fifteenth century), Belleten, 24 (1960), 45–102Google Scholar. See also Dalsar, Fahri, Turk Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihinde Bursa'da Ipekqilik (The place of the Bursa silk industry in the industrial and commercial history of Turkey) (Istanbul, 1960)Google Scholar.

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8 Frequency of observation determined the weight given. For more detailed information on the methodology applied the reader is referred to C'zakca, “Inflation and the Bursa Silk Industry,” chaps. 2 and 3.

9 This situation, however, does not create a problem, as my purpose is to compare the relative price trends of raw silk and silk cloth, a comparison that can be easily made by using the prevailing nominal prices. The basic source on Ottoman monetary history is the partly unpublished work of Sa-hillioglu, Halil, Kurulufundan XVII. Asrin Sonlarina Kadar Osmanh Para Tarihi Hakkinda Bir Deneme study of Ottoman monetary history from the beginning to the seventeenth century) (Ph.D. diss., Istanbul Univ., 1958)Google Scholar; idem, Bir Asirhk Osmanh Para Tarihi, 1640–1740 (Ottoman monetary history, 1640–1740) (Istanbul, 1965). See also idem, “XVII. Asnn Ilk Yansinda Istanbul'da TedUviildeki Sik-kelerin Rayici” (The rate of coins in circulation during the first half of the seventeenth century in Istanbul), Belgeler Dergisi, 1 (1964), 227–35, and his latest article, “Osmanh Para Tarihinde Dünya Para ve Maden Hareketlerinin Yeri (1300–1750)” (The place of the worldwide movements of money and precious metals in Ottoman monetary history, 1300–1750), Studies in Development, special (1978), pp. 1–38Google Scholar. That converting nominal Ottoman prices into grams of pure silver could be misleading has been explained to me by Sahillioglu.

10 , Barkan, “Turning Point,” p. 15Google Scholar.

11 In this difficult process I consulted Barkan, “Edirrie” and Fahri Dalsar, Bursa'da tpekfilik. I also benefitted from the comments of Professor Halil Sahillioglu of Istanbul University, and from long conversations with old silk clothiers of Bursa, who, remarkably enough, knew some of the names.

12 Consider the statement, “1600 Tarihlerinden sonra rastgeldigimiz atlaslann hemen hepsi Vene-dik ve Frenk mah'olarak goriilmektedir” (After the 1600s almost all of the atlas we have found appear to have been of Venetian and European origin). Dalsar, F., Bursa'da lpekçilik, p. 38Google Scholar.

13 Zira, although widely used, was by no means a standard unit of length. For example, there were twenty different forms of zira in the Arab provinces alone; Hinz, W., Islamische Masse und Gewichte, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Erste Abteilung, Erganzungsband 1, Heft 1 (Leiden and Cologne, 1970)Google Scholar What expedited this study is the proximity of Bursa to Istanbul. According to Hinz (Ibid., p. 58) there was a type of zira which Arabs called “Ad-dira'al-Istanbuliyya” (zira of Istanbul), ranging from 65 to 68 centimeters. The fact that this form was known in distant Arab provinces suggests that this Istanbul zira must have been a fairly standard and widely accepted unit. Furthermore, even if the zira of Bursa was not exactly equal to the zira of Istanbul, as long as each maintained a constant length throughout our period we would have no formidable problem.

14 On this question see the forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation on the customs of Erzurum by Nese Erim (Univ. of Istanbul).

15 MAD 399/41 and MAD 399/51, Prime Ministry Archives.

16 Islamoglu, Huri and Faroqhi, Spraiya, “Crop Patterns and Agricultural Production Trends in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia,” Review, vol. 2, no. 3 (1979), 413Google Scholar.

17 Masson, Paul, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1911), pp. 445–467Google Scholar

18 On the production of orsoglio and spread of the hydraulic mill, see Poni, Carlo, “All'origine del sistema di fabricca: Tecnologia e organizzazione produttiva dei mulini da seta nell'Italia settentrion-ale (Sec. XVII-XVIII),” Rivisla storica italiana, 3 (1967), 445Google Scholar–97, and idem, “Archeologie de la fabrique: La diffusion des moulins a soie ‘alia bolognese” dans les Etats venitiens du XVIe au XVIIe siècle,” Annales, E.S.C., 6 (1972), 1475–96.

19 Personal correspondence with Carlo Poni dated 17 Dec. 1977. According to Poni the rapid expansion of the hydraulic mill in Italy occurred between 1634 and 1670 (see “Archeologie de la fa-brique,” p. 1478). Thus, the Italian influence on price trends must have been more pronounced for these years. But this is not to say that an Italian impact was not felt previously: the production of or-ganzino had been increasing since the beginning of the century, and Italians exported this product throughout the period.

20 Davis, Ralph, “English Imports from the Middle East, 1580–1780,” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, ed. Cook, Michael A., p. 202Google Scholar. In this context see also Ulker, Necmi, “The Rise of Izmir, 1686–1740” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1974), chap. 2Google Scholar.

21 Paul Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, rpt. (New York, 1965), pp. 193–95.

22 On Ottoman-Dutch trade the reader is referred to Heeringa, K., Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel 1, 2 parts (The Hague, 1910–1917), andGoogle ScholarGroot, A. H. de, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic (Leiden/Istanbul, 1978), passimGoogle Scholar.

23 Wee, Herman Van der, “Konjunktur und Welthandel in den Südlichen Niederlanden (1538–44),” Wirtschaftskrafte und Wirtschaftswege, Beitrâge zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte, ed. Schneider, Hermann Kellen-benz and Jürgen (Bamberg, 1978), p. 144Google Scholar.

24 Brulez, Wilfrid, “The Balance of Trade of the Netherlands in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century,” Acta Historiae Neerlandica, 4 (1970), 36Google Scholar, and Wee, Herman Van der, “Handel in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden,” p. 91Google Scholar.

25 For the English importation, see Davis, Ralph, Aleppo and Devonshire Square (London, 1967), p. 139Google Scholar; for the Dutch see the unpublished paper by Gaastra, F. S., “The Dutch East India Co. and the Asian Market,” presented at the French-Dutch Economic History Conference, Leyden, 10 1978Google Scholar, sponsored by the Institute for the History of Overseas Expansion, University of Leyden. Early seventeenth-century English attempts at carrying the Persian silk via the Indian Ocean had failed. Wood, Alfred C., A History of the Levant Company, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), pp. 47–49Google Scholar.

26 On the economies achieved in the Italian silk industry, see Poni, “All'origine del sistema di Fabricca”.

27 Erder, Leyla, “The Making of Industrial Bursa: Economic Activity and Population in a Turkish City, 1835–1975” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1976), p. 98Google Scholar.

28 On the low wages in the English textile industry see, Supple, Barry E., Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600–1642 (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 124, 144, 224Google Scholar. For Switzerland see, Bodmer, Walter, Die Entwicklung der Schweizerischen Textilwirtschaft im Rahmen der Ubrigen Industrien und Wirtschaftswege (Zurich, 1960), pt. IIGoogle Scholar.

29 For the successive debasements of the Ottoman akce see, , Sahillioglu, “Osmanli Para Tarihinde,” p. 38Google Scholar. For a comparison of the exchange rates between various European currencies and the akce see Braudel, Fernand and Spooner, Frank, “Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750,” The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge, 1967), Vol. 4, p. 458Google Scholar. This argument is more valid for the Dutch than the English merchants, who were legally prohibited from exporting bullion from their country.

30 The following price histories were consulted, without any result: Maddalena, Aldo de, Prezzi e as-petti di mercato in Milano durante il secolo XVII (Milan, 1949), pp. 172–77Google Scholar; Parenti, G., Prime recherche sulla rivoluzione dei prezzi in Firenze (Florence, 1939), p. xviGoogle Scholar; Elsas, M. J., Umriss einer Geschichte der Preise und Lohne in Deutschland (Leiden, 1936–1949)Google Scholar; Beveridge, W. H., Prices and Wages in England from the 12th to the 19th Century (London, 1966)Google Scholar, and Posthumus, N. W., Inquiry into the History of Prices in Holland (Leiden, 1964), Vol. IIGoogle Scholar. There were two exceptions: Earl J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650, rpt. (New.York, 1965), Appendix IV, and Wee, Herman Van der, “Konjunktur und Welthandel,” p. 144Google Scholar. The former work concerns Spanish prices, which are of limited importance for our purposes as the Spanish were not particularly involved in Le-vantine trade; the latter, though more relevant, only covers the period 1538–1544.

31 A vigorous policy of import substitution was indeed applied by many European countries in the early seventeenth century. See Van der Wee, Ibid., p. 139; Thijs, Alfons K. L., De Zijdennijverheid te Antwerpen in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Liege, 1969), pp. 61–63Google Scholar; and Charles W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantalism, rpt. (Hamden, 1964), vol. 2, chap. 10.

32 Davis, Ralph, Aleppo and Devonshire Square, p. 42Google Scholar; idem, “England and the Mediterranean, 1570–1670,” in Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. F. J. Fisher (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 120–21; , Olker, Izmir, pp. 125–55Google Scholar; and Cole, Colbert, chap. 10. Also see, Groot, A. H. de, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, p. 109Google Scholar.

33 , Çizakça, “Inflation and the Bursa Silk Industry,” p. 262Google Scholar.

34 This is no place to give a detailed overview of the Ottoman land system. Suffice it to say that inflation, population growth, an d changing political conditions all led to the impoverishment of the peasantry. See Barkan, Ömer L., “The Social Consequences of Economic Crisis in Later Sixteenth Century Turkey,” in Social Aspects of Economic Development (Istanbul, 1964)Google Scholar, Cook, Michael A., Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, Oriental Series, vol. 27 (London, 1972)Google Scholar, and Kunt, Metin, Sancaktan Eyalete (From Sancak to Eyalet) (Istanbul, 1978), chap. 4Google Scholar.

35 , DavisGoogle Scholar, “England an d the Mediterranean,” pp. 120–22, Supple, Crisis and Change in England, passim.

36 So far we have only preliminary evidence on raw cotton production; see , tslamoglu-Faroqhi, “Crop Patterns and Agricultural Trends,” pp. 413–14Google Scholar.

37 Brulez, Wilfrid, “L'Exportation des Pays-Bas vers l'ltalie par voie de terre au milieu du XVIe siècle,” Annales, E.S.C. 14/3 (1959), 461–91Google Scholar.

38 Bowden, Peter J., “Movements in Wool Prices, 1490–1610,”. Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, 4 (1977), 116Google Scholar.

39 Beveridge, Prices and Wages in England, passim.

40 , Braude, “International Competition and Domestic Cloth,” p. 442Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., p. 442. It may be argued here that faster price increases on the Continent may have induced English merchants to export wool to the main centers of wool consumption. But it is well known that protectionist policies pursued by the English crown between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries transformed the structure of English exports; exports of wool declined throughout this period while those of cloth increased; see Carus-Wilson, E. M., Medieval Merchant Venturers (London, 1954), p. xviii, andGoogle ScholarLipson, E., The History of the Woollen and Worsted Industries (London, 1965), pp. 87–88Google Scholar.

42 According to Davis, “The trade ca n almost be reduced, in fact, to the exchange of broadcloth for raw silk” (“England and the Mediterranean,” p. 125).

43 The main exporters of cloth from England were the Merchant Adventurers' Company and its “offshoots,” the Levant Co. and the Eastland Co. Hanseatic merchants, chief competitors of the London merchants in exporting English cloth, lost their privileges in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Thus English cloth producers who lost a major source of demand now faced a powerful group of merchants who enjoyed the sole right of cloth exportation. This group has been often accused of depressing the cloth market in England. See, Tawney, Richard H., ed., Studies in Economic History: The Collected Papers of George Unwin, 3rd. ed. (London, 1966), pt. 2Google Scholar.

44 Braude showed that broadcloth prices in Istanbul were 20 to 30 percent lower than those in London; “International Competition and Domestic Cloth,” pp. 443–45.

45 For the effects on the Italian woollen industry see, Pullan, Brian, Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1968)Google Scholar, and Rapp, Richard T., “The Unmaking of the Mediterranean Trade Hegemony: International Trade Rivalry and the Commercial Revolution,” this Journal, 35 (09 1975), 499–525Google Scholar. For the effects on the Ottoman woollen industry see Braude, “International Competiton and Domestic Cloth,” passim.

46 , Rapp, “Mediterranean Trade Hegemony, ” p. 523Google Scholar.

47 , Dalsar, Bursa'da lpekçilik, p. 38Google Scholar.

48 Gücer, Lütfi, “Osmanli Imparatorlugu Dahilinde Hububat Ticaretinin Tábi OlduǦu Kayitlar” (Rules regulating wheat trade within the Ottoman Empire), I.Ü. Iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi, 13, 1–4 (1951–1952), pp. 79–98Google Scholar.

49 Çizakça, Murat, “Considerations on the Cost Structure of the Bursa Silk Industry,” Acta Histor-ica-Oeconomica Iugoslavia, in pressGoogle Scholar.

50 Turkish historians are just beginning to enter this field. See, Oanisman, Günhan H., “An Operational Fulling-mill at Kirha-Divan in the Center Anatolian Plateau of Turkey,” Post-Medieval Archeology, 2 (1977), 80–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Leyla Erder, “The Making of Industrial Bursa,” chap. 3.

52 The government took elaborate measures to assure the competitiveness of the auctions. See Gen, Meh-net, “Osmanli Maliyesinde Malikane Sistemi” (The system of life-term tax-farms in Ottoman public finance), Türkiye Iktisat Tarihi Semineri, ed. Okyar, Osman (Ankara, 1975), pp. 231–92Google Scholar.

53 Of the total value of the silk brought to the Mizan (scale), 3–4 percent was collected by the state as Mizan resmi (scale tax) in 1571 (document A88/103–9B among the Bursa Court Registers). But this tax based on the total value apparently was not the rule; much more generally, taxes were based solely on the weight. We have solid evidence that already in the 1470s silk taxes were based on weight in eastern Anatolia. The Ottomans weighed silk with lodra or lidre; thirty lodras equalled one vezne. On a vezne of silk the seller paid 52 akges scale-tax (Mizan resmi) in 1570 in Bursa. The purchaser paid the same amount, making the total yield to the state 104 akges ( , Dalsar, Bursa'da Ipekçilik, pp. 243–45Google Scholar; for additional information on Ottoman weight units see Hinz, Osmanische Masse und Ge-wichte, passim). Furthermore, this tax rate of 52 akçes from a vezne of silk most probably remained constant. On the rigidity of Ottoman tax rates see , Genç, “Malikâne Sistemi,” p. 296Google Scholar, and Cohen, Ammon and Lewis, Bernard, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century (Princeton, 1978), pt. 2Google Scholar. Thus there was a positive relationship between the total tax yield of the tax farm and the amount of raw silk brought into it. When the supply of raw silk was continuous and large, the tax farmer could realize a handsome profit even after paying the state its share. If this profitable situation continued, there would be stiff competition to purchase the tax farm when it was later resold in auction. Consequently, the new price determined in auction would reflect the tax farm's profitability, hence the volume of its raw silk supplies. The same argument holds for cloth production and the cloth stamping tax farm; Damga-i Akmise Mukata'asi.

54 Damga Resmi was also collected from the quantity of cloth brought to the tax farm. See , Dalsar, Bursa'da Ipekçilik, p. 249Google Scholar; Gogunc, Nejat, XVI. Asirda Mardin Sancagi (Province of Mardin in the sixteenth century) (Istanbul, 1969), p. 137Google Scholar; and Barkan, Ömer L., Osmanh tmparatorlugunda Zirai Ekonominin Hukuki ve Mali Esaslan (Legal and financial principles of the Ottoman agricultural economy) (Istanbul, 1945), pp. 136–39Google Scholar.

55 The records of some of these cases have been published by , Dalsar, Bursa'da Ipekçilik, pp. 323–25, 328Google Scholar.

56 Quantity based taxes rule out any effect inflation might have had on total yields of the tax-farm. Same argument applies to stamp-tax where taxes were based on the length or weight of cloth; i.e., quantity of cloth.

57 , çizakca, “Inflation and the Bursa Silk Industry,” pp. 140–41Google Scholar.

58 Davis, “English Imports from the Middle East”; Olker, “The Rise of Izmir.”

59 Qizakca, Murat, “A Short History of the Bursa Silk Industry, 1500–1900,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, in pressGoogle Scholar.